Quote from: Cosmo on July 20, 2016, 06:35:10 PM
Now I'll have to take issue with your opinions on Suzie. A lot of good fun...screwball comedy type stuff...and interesting to see adventures beyond high school. Some of the best covers found on any Archie title as well. Of course that is what makes it interesting ...different stuff amuses different people.

I don't claim to be any great expert on SUZIE... pretty much all I've read are the stories infrequently reprinted in the digests (sans credits, alas), and some of the public domain ones available at DCM. SUZIE just sort of strikes me as the most Marvel-like (or Atlas-like, if you prefer) of all the Archie Comics titles, and suffers by comparison to the better Marvel ones (although they had the likes of Dan DeCarlo, Stan Goldberg and Al Hartley working for them in the 1950s, so...). I can't even quite figure if there was one pre-eminent artist on SUZIE. Was there a definitive Suzie artist, like with Harry Lucey's GINGER? It's not like I'm saying they're absolutely dreadful or anything, just... compared to what Harry Lucey did with GINGER, or ARCHIE, or even the older BETTY AND VERONICA stories by Dan DeCarlo from the early 50s?? All I'm really saying here is that for the time period, stuff like SUZIE and WILBUR wasn't even ACP's "A"-game, never mind what Marvel/Atlas was doing at the same time. So, yeah, for me... underwhelming. I mean, sometimes the covers aren't bad, but like a lot of comics, the covers tend to be the best part of the comic. I wasn't really even considering that, just thinking of the various Suzie stories I've read, none of which were particularly memorable.

Maybe it's a little like Super Duck, where there are better ones, and not-so-better ones. Super Duck actually morphed through a lot of different character designs over the years* -- personally, I prefer the earliest (ever-so-brief) iteration of the character, when he actually WAS super, but then I always did like Mighty Mouse, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, and other super-animal characters.
*(See>> http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics136.html)

I guess it's all in the yardstick you're using for comparison purposes. With the '50s Archie Comics, I have to stack them against their competition at Marvel/Atlas, and with Super Duck it's obviously going to be measured against the Western/Dell/KK Disney ducks, or for that matter, even the better Harvey funny animal comics, like Baby Huey. So maybe it sounds a little flip and dismissive to compare Al Fagaly to Carl Barks... but honestly, Fagaly was no Al Taliaferro, either, to choose a maybe fairer comparison. When they pick the better stories to reprint in the digests, it helps to give a digest some variety, so 12 pages or so of Super Duck isn't necessarily a bad thing, possibly more like a welcome replacement for what I'd consider some of the "lesser" Archie reprints.

ONE-PUNCH MAN VOL. 4, 5, 6, & 7 - One of the most enjoyable manga series I've read in a while. I intend to pick this up from now on as new volumes come out.

Quote from: irishmoxie on July 20, 2016, 04:15:55 PM
What did you think of Betty and Veronica #1?

Quotable quote of the issue:

Quote"I know it's unrealistic to want it, but I want to keep our Riverdale the way it's always been. I want it to grow, but I don't want it to CHANGE. Does that make sense?"

I'd have voted for two pin-up/fashion pages of B&V in their bikinis instead of two small pictures of Betty reading the script. In fact, I think I could have given the script a pass altogether, for 24 pages of B&V in their bikinis. AH should just go with what works for him.

Is Veronica this big of a putz in the regular ARCHIE series?

Monday, 7/18:
THE ETERNAUT HC

Wednesday, 7/20:
ASTONISHING ANT-MAN #10
PATSY WALKER AKA HELLCAT #8
BLACK WIDOW #5
SQUADRON SUPREME #9
SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #7
BETTY & VERONICA #1
WEIRD DETECTIVE #2 (of 5)
BLACK HAMMER #1
ASTRO CITY #37
HELLBLAZER REBIRTH #1
BATGIRL & THE BIRDS OF PREY REBIRTH #1
JUSTICE LEAGUE (2016) #1
ONE-PUNCH MAN VOL. 1 TP
HENCHGIRL #9
STAR TREK NEW VISIONS SPECIAL: THE CAGE
ONE-PUNCH MAN VOL. 3 TP

Ginger was around (beginning with ZIP COMICS #35) for years before getting her own comic, but those early stories just can't compare to the 10-issue run (particularly as drawn by Harry Lucey) in her own comic... and with SAM HILL, Lucey proved how versatile and adaptable he was to any genre of comics.

The old Wilbur was pretty bland, too. That is, until he received a makeover by Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo in 1958, in "The New" WILBUR #80. Those stories are great! The New Wilbur actually has more in common with JOSIE than it does with THAT WILKIN BOY. Alec from WILBUR is practically a trial run for JOSIE's Alexander Cabot. About the only thing they kept from WILBUR in THAT WILKIN BOY was the name Wilkin and the running joke about how Mr. Wilkin hates to be called "Wilkins". But I do love me some THAT WILKIN BOY (and the MADHOUSE GLADS).

I'm still a little underwhelmed by most of the SUZIE stories I've read. Maybe they just haven't picked the best ones to reprint?

COSMO THE MERRY MARTIAN was terrific, as written and drawn by his creator, Bob White, one of the most underrated creators working at Archie Comics in the late 1950s and 1960s.

I can take SUPER DUCK in small doses, as long as they pick the best ones to reprint... but Al Fagaly is no Carl Barks.

I love reading all the Golden Age MLJ superheroes at the Digital Comics Museum, and have been slowly downloading them and sorting them by character into my own little digital "Archives" collection. However, I have almost no interest in the humor stories from that era. Maybe it's because they just got SO much better as the 1950s led into the 1960s.

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on July 19, 2016, 01:46:26 PM
Also, Gisele is drawing a Betty Boop series!!!
I grew up watching the old Betty Boop cartoons

That sounds like it could be good. I have exactly ONE Betty Boop comic book, that was put out by F1RST Comics back in the 1980s. I also have a trade paperback reprinting the old newspaper strips from the 1930s, but that's not the same as having new stories. Roger Langridge did a great job writing IDW's POPEYE comic book, so I feel like this one's a winner.

ARCHIE'S FUNHOUSE SUMMER ANNUAL #21 - In addition to the usual 11-page Little Archie section this issue had a long 22-page Little Archie story reprinted from one of the last issues of ARCHIE & FRIENDS, and another 5-page lead (possibly new, but I'm not convinced) Little Archie story by Bob Bolling. Besides which, I counted several stories in this digest that I'd read recently elsewhere (can't recall where). That made it a pretty lackluster Summer Annual for me, with entirely too much Little Archie content. The only other thing I noticed that was noteworthy were a number of stories where Dilton plays a major part (more than is average for a digest this size) which is a good thing AFAIC, and (I think) 3 or 4 stories in which Archie seems interested in Midge (or attempts to flirt) briefly, in one fashion or another, which again seems like a higher percentage than random.

Yesterday I read CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS #3 (Wacky Races), 17 (Toonami), 20 (Cartoon All-Stars), 21 (Toonami), 22 (Cartoon All-Stars), and THE FLINTSTONES AND THE JETSONS #19, all published around 1998-1999 by DC.

These were published at a time when Cartoon Network's programming was mostly comprised of reruns of old cartoons, and DC had just taken over the license to publish Hanna-Barbera comic books from Archie Comics. In fact, CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS was sort of a continuation of the same sort of content that had been in ACP's licensed HANNA-BARBERA PRESENTS (#1-8, 1995-1996), and featured a lot of the same characters, like Wacky Racers, Yogi Bear, Top Cat, Quick Draw McGraw, Magilla Gorilla, Secret Squirrel and Atom Ant. Cartoon Network was just beginning to produce new shows, a few of which were featured in CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS, like Dexter's Laboratory (#1) and it's companion cartoon Dial M For Monkey (#4) and Space Ghost Coast To Coast (#2), but most of these issues featured old Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters. One major exception was the new CN show Cow and Chicken, which appeared in issues #6, 10, 14 and 19. Toonami (which appeared in issues #5, 9, 13, 17 and 21) was originally an afternoon programming block of H-B adventure cartoons (Herculoids, Birdman, Galaxy Trio, Shazzan, Dynomutt & the Blue Falcon, etc.) hosted in framing segments by Space Ghost's old foe Moltar. Later the format switched to mostly a mix of anime shows like Dragonball Z and DC character cartoons like Batman, and Moltar was dropped as a host in favor of the robotic CGI host Tom.

#24 was the last issue of Cartoon Network Presents, as new programming on Cartoon Network continued to increase. DEXTER'S LABORATORY was quickly spun off into it's own title after the early issues, and Cartoon Network Presents was cancelled in favor of a similar title, CARTOON NETWORK STARRING (1999), which premiered with THE POWERPUFF GIRLS in issue #1 (also in #5), before they too got their own ongoing title. From then on Cartoon Network Starring featured Cow and Chicken (continuing from where it left off in Cartoon Network Presents #19) in issues #3, 7, 10, 13, and 16, rotating with Space Ghost Coast To Coast (previously featured in Cartoon Network Presents #2) in issues #4, 9, 12, 15 and 18,  and Johnny Bravo in issues #2, 6, 8, 11, 14 and 17.

Other anthology titles based on the network like CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY (which featured The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Codename: Kids Next Door, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Ed Edd & Eddy, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Foster's Imaginary Friends, and Camp Lazlo, in addition to continuing Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, and Cow and Chicken, and ran 59 issues), and CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK (featuring Ben 10/Alien Force/Ultimate Alien, The Secret Saturdays, Samurai Jack, and Generator Rex, among others, for 67 issues) followed at DC.

While I missed the old H-B cartoons featured in Cartoon Network Presents when it was cancelled, DC did continue to publish THE FLINTSTONES AND THE JETSONS for 21 issues from 1997-1999 (picking up where Archie Comics' previous FLINTSTONES series of 22 issues, 1995-1997, and THE JETSONS, 17 issues from 1995-1997 had left off). These were interesting because a few of the issues featured crossover stories between the modern stone age family and the family of the future. Archie Comics had also published SCOOBY-DOO for 21 issues from 1995-1997, and DC picked up with a new SCOOBY-DOO #1 in 1997, and that series has continued running until this day (155 issues and still going strong, even spinning off the companion title SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP in 2014, which is also still going after 16 issues).

DEXTER'S LABORATORY, THE POWERPUFF GIRLS, BEN 10, and SAMURAI JACK all eventually appeared in DC Comics, but they eventually lost the CN license (with the exception of SCOOBY-DOO, which they kept) to IDW in 2013, which continues to publish irregular miniseries featuring those CN properties and others. Recently they launched a new POWERPUFF GIRLS comic to tie in with the revived/revamped new PPG animated series on CN.

Today I read SWING WITH SCOOTER #8, 21, and 24, plus BINKY'S BUDDIES #4. SWING WITH SCOOTER #8 wasn't the least bit Archie-like, and I can't say I much cared for its forced attempt at humor. #21 and 24 were much more to my liking, having work by Doug Crane and Henry Scarpelli. BINKY'S BUDDIES #4 wasn't quite as good, but still had a (somewhat more vague) Archie-like approach to teen humor.

Doing a little bit of research on these two titles on GCD, it looks as though SWING WITH SCOOTER, which began as a DC humor title based around a fashionable "mod" British teen and his sister who come to live with their Aunt Hatta and attend an American high school, seems to have experienced a makeover around issue #14 (with the two issues prior to that somewhat transitional). Later issues never refer to Scooter's British origins and he seems to have lost his accent and Anglicized slang. Cookie and Penny are his two gal pals (a blonde and a raven-haired brunette), and he's got a weird friend (an otherwise handsome blond-haired guy) named Malibu, whose family are all monsters. Apart from the fact that Malibu always wears a black turtleneck and pants with a white trenchcoat (even indoors) and has pointed ears, it's never mentioned or hinted at what kind of monster he's supposed to be, so maybe he's a bit like Marilyn Munster, the "oddball" offspring of the family. He seemed to be the most popular of Scooter's friends, and he appears in many one- and two-page gag strips, sometimes filling out half the issue.



BINKY'S BUDDIES was a spinoff title from the earlier LEAVE IT TO BINKY, a title that goes all the way back to 1948 for DC. It compared reasonably with the same type of teen humor comics being published by Marvel at that time, before people like Dan DeCarlo, Stan Goldberg, and Al Hartley became some of the main artists on teen humor titles there in the 1950s. (When Marvel severely cut back on its publishing in 1958, DeCarlo was let go, and ACP became his main source of income. By 1960, Marvel's remaining girl humor titles were transitioned to romantic soap opera dramas.) By 1958 though, DC's LEAVE IT TO BINKY must have appeared pretty dated and was selling badly, and there were several long gaps between issues #58 (Jan/Feb 1957) and #60 (Oct 1958), when the title was cancelled. It was revived almost 10 years later, in 1968 (after a one-issue tryout in SHOWCASE #70, Sept/Oct 1967), picking up with #61 (Jun/July 68), now revamped in the mode of then-contemporary Archie Comics, and ran until #81 (after a title change to just plain BINKY beginning with issue #72), dated Oct/Nov 1971. There was one final issue published in Summer 1977 (#82). Despite the short run of 22 issues in its revived incarnation, the revamped BINKY must have initially been well-received enough that it did manage to spin off a separate title in that time, BINKY'S BUDDIES, which lasted from #1 (Jan/Feb 1969) to #12 (Nov/Dec 1970).



Also during this same time, DC published DATE WITH DEBBI for 18 issues, which actually outlasted both BINKY and BINKY'S BUDDIES, and contained work by Samm Schwartz, Henry Scarpelli, Doug Crane (the latter two were also contributors to SCOOTER), and Stan Goldberg (is there a comic publisher he didn't work for?), running until Oct/Nov 1972, and ending the same month as SCOOTER's final issue, #36 (even though the previous issue, #35 had been published back in Aug/Sept 1971).

     

One final DC humor title of overlapping interest was ANGEL AND THE APE, featuring pretty Angel O'Day and her cartoonist/detective partner Sam Simeon, who just happened to be a talking gorilla. It ran for 7 issues, from Dec 1968 to Dec 1969, after a one-issue tryout appearance in SHOWCASE #77 (Sept. '68), with pencilling mostly supplied by DC humor mainstay Bob Oskner, while much of the inking gets credited to the legendary Wallace Wood.

Not coincidentally, during that same period from late 1967 to early 1973, Marvel's girl humor titles (previously revamped as soap operas) returned to the Archie style sitcom and gags. Also not coincidentally, Archie Comics was itself riding high (relatively speaking) during that time period, and enjoying the exposure of its characters in animated cartoons on Saturday morning television (and in later reruns), something that was not lost on the marketing departments at DC and Marvel.

Yesterday, Wednesday July 13th:
CIVIL WAR II: GODS OF WAR #2 (of 4)
MILLARWORLD ANNUAL 2016 #1
CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA #6
RICK AND MORTY: LIL POOPY SUPERSTAR #1
BETTY AND ME #33 (Feb. 1971)
ACTION COMICS #959
DETECTIVE COMICS #936
WONDER WOMAN #2
NIGHTWING REBIRTH #1
HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS REBIRTH #1
JOSIE #26 (Apr. 1967)
BETTY AND VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #245
THE LONE RANGER #1 (1993) one-shot newspaper strip reprint
THE LONE RANGER & THE GREEN HORNET #1 (of 6)
SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: FALL OF MAN #1 (of 5)
RAGNAROK #9
KAIJUMAX SEASON 2 #2 (of 6)

It does seem like archaic terminology, but on the other hand, I was wracking my brain trying to think of what IS the current parlance for couples in an exclusive committed dating relationship, then? Or is that just something nobody admits to or talks about anymore?

Depends on what your standards of comparison are. The percentage of better quality animated shows increased substantially throughout the 1990s (some of which I mentioned in an earlier post). I'm sure there were worse animated shows than AWM (like Sabrina), but I sure wasn't watching those either. AWM maybe compares to something like the 1980s TMNT cartoon. Meanwhile around this time WB animation was doing shows like Batman Beyond and Justice League, and Nickelodeon was doing Spongebob Squarepants and The Fairly Oddparents, and just a few years earlier they had Ren & Stimpy. I'm pretty sure AWM wound up on PAX because they were lowballing a bid, and none of the other networks were willing to touch it. I just checked out an episode of "The New Archies" (from 1987) and AWM isn't much better than that. And why do all these shows (including the Archie old time radio show) always want to give Veronica a southern accent? Yeah, maybe in the 1940s it wasn't too well established, but it's been decades since they more or less settled on the Lodges having moved to Riverdale when Veronica was little.

REALWORLDS: WONDER WOMAN (2000)
MIRACULOUS #1 (of 4?) - 64 pages, not bad for $4.
THE ROCKETEER AT WAR #1-4
SECRET WARS: AGENTS OF ATLAS #1 (one-shot)
2000 AD FCBD 2016

Whoa. Back when I was scooping up practically everything Archie-related in sight, I saw the complete DVD set on Amazon and it was really cheap, so I went for it, figuring might as well scoop it up now before it goes out-of-stock. Now I know why it was so cheap. The price was pretty reflective of the content, so no bargain here after all. I finally watched one of the episodes today and I was just left scratching my head. Was this show REALLY made in 1999? Because if I knew nothing else about it and was forced to take a wild guess just based on the animation, I'd have guessed it was from 10 or 20 years earlier. I'd have been basing that guess on what I'd compare as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends-level of quality of animation, writing, and voice-acting, not to mention (non-)faithfulness to the comic book characters (actually, that might be insulting to Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends). Animation quality is bargain-basement, and characterization and acting basically non-existent here. (And I thought the Filmation voice work was pretty bad... this makes it look pretty good by comparison.)

That forced me to wonder why nobody yet has done a straight adaptation of Archie that really even attempts to evoke the spirit of the comic books. The Filmation cartoon was undoubtedly closest, but not very, at that. For some reason characters and stories whose most common plots divide into the two main categories of "teenage dating dilemmas" and "high school hijinks" aren't seen much in television animation, even in the Filmation cartoon, which came closest otherwise.

I mean, why is anyone even interested in doing an Archie adaptation for television if what they really want to write is just these situations and plots that aren't the slightest bit Archie Comics-like in nature?

At least the comic book adaptation of the show managed somehow to try to veer it back slightly more towards what passes for normal in Archie Comics, Seriously, the TV cartoon and the comic book version seem like two different animals, despite having a similar premise.

... Well, not exactly, but you could be fooled into thinking that, in this parody comic that appeared in the Sept. 1970 issue of the NATIONAL LAMPOON. Actually, the artwork here by penciller Joe Orlando and inker Henry Scarpelli looks like it's straight out of an issue of DC comics' BINKY'S BUDDIES, one of the many Archie Comics lookalike titles from the late 1960s/early 1970s era.